Jadeja, Krishna Manojkumar;
(2023)
Development and testing of a facility for the trapping and cooling of isomers.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Preview |
Text
Jadeja_10167437_thesis.pdf Download (9MB) | Preview |
Abstract
The project presented in this thesis pertains to the intersection of atomic and nuclear physics, specifically, laser trapping techniques applied to caesium isotopes and isomers. The main experiment is a laser cooling apparatus installed at the Ion Guide Isotope Separation On-Line (IGISOL) facility at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. When training or during delays in the primary experiment, I often worked on experiments based at UCL. The first section describes a 133Cs Magneto-Optical Trap (MOT) experiment at UCL, and was used as an analogue to the isomer trapping experiment. The laser system was set up, and the vacuum chamber was prepared for the MOT, which was then characterised. Then the isomer cooling experiment is discussed. Due to a power cut, many parts of the laser system had to be repaired. The apparatus was then tested - firstly by obtaining a 133Cs MOT from an ampoule, then from an offline 133Cs+ ion beam. The experiment was further developed by establishing an offset frequency locking scheme for the laser sources. This will allow the laser frequencies to be varied for various isotopes and isomers. Frequency offsets from 200 MHz to 9.9 GHz were successfully locked to. The final section reports on an atomic magnetometer, which uses cold atoms instead of atoms at or close to room temperature. A sensitivity of 330 pT/ √ Hz with an operational range of 15 – 100 kHz was achieved and the result was published in [1]. Future progress is expected to include the trapping of 134Cs, the beam for which shall be produced via 134CsNO3 samples from Institut Laue–Langevin (ILL). Long term goals include the trapping of the 135mCs isomer, and eventually a Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC) of the isomer. This will allow the exploration of the generation of coherent gamma photons, which has many possible applications, ranging from biomedicine to fundamental studies on multi-body phenomena.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Development and testing of a facility for the trapping and cooling of isomers |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10167437 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
